1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fingerprint recognition apparatus, and more particularly, to a fingerprint recognition apparatus including a function of sterilizing a fingerprint contact surface.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, a demand for accuracy of personal authentication increases with the spread of information exchanges through Internet. Applications of a biometric authentication also increase to satisfy such a demand.
In general, the biometric authentication uses fingerprints, eye retinas, irises, voices, facial patterns, electronic signatures and the like. Particularly, a fingerprint recognition method accounts above 70% of the overall biometric authentication market because it has the following advantages: 1) it is harmless because it requires only a contact of a user's finger; 2) it is convenient; and 3) an apparatus for the fingerprint recognition is inexpensive because of its simple structure.
Accordingly, such a fingerprint recognition method is practically implemented to a lap-top computer, a mobile phone, and a personal digital assistant (PDA) as well as an access management and a network security system related to a data security and an electronic commerce.
The above-described fingerprint recognition apparatus is classified into an optical type fingerprint recognition apparatus using an optical lens such as a prism and a hologram, and a non-optical type fingerprint recognition apparatus using a semiconductor device such as a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS). In general, the fingerprint recognition apparatus adopts a contact type fingerprint recognition that a user touches his or her finger directly on a fingerprint contact surface.
Accordingly, the related art fingerprint recognition apparatus is unhygienic because the fingerprint contact surface, which many and unspecified persons contact their fingers on repeatedly, provides a bacterial infection site all times, which exposes users to a bacterial infection.